Sweet potato soup with roasted garlic and feta

(serves 2)

This is one of those almost just one-ingredient type recipes... can be as fancy or simple as you want! Roasted garlic just smells and tastes amazing so i think it's totally worth bothering ~ especially if you're going to toast some bread in the oven anyway, or you're making something else... i think i may have been baking at the same time?

Anyhow, this is a bit of a strange one for the taste buds - sweet-ish soup with salty feta, and olive oil is the great sealing flavour as usual! Works for me, be adventurous, try it out!

Prep time: 10 min
Cooking time: 30-40 min


Ingredients:
1 brown onion
1 sweet potato (1/2 kg)
400mL chicken stock
100mL water
50 mL cream/milk
5-6 cloves garlic
2 tsp thyme
2 tsp paprika
1 tsp nutmeg
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
20g feta, to serve (optional) 
NB. Pine nuts could also be good for sprinkling on top!


Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 180C.
2. To roast the garlic, cut off the end of the garlic cloves (but leave the skin on) and put them into a piece of aluminium foil. Add salt, pepper and olive oil and wrap it up and bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes.
3. Finely dice the onion and chop the sweet potato into 2cm squares.
4. Heat a medium-sized pot, add some olive oil and saute the onions.
5. Add the thyme and saute until you can smell it, then add the sweet potato and the chicken stock and water and bring to the boil. Continue to boil until the sweet potato is soft (10-15 minutes).
6. Add the roasted garlic, paprika and nutmeg and cool the soup mixture. 
7. Blend with a food processor or a stick blender.
8. Reheat the soup and add the milk or cream, and add salt and pepper to taste.
9. To serve, crumble the feta on top, and give it a swirl of olive oil!